After spending seven seasons with the New York Mets, Pete Alonso signed with the Baltimore Orioles in free agency.
Alonso became the first player in MLB history to lead both the National League and American League in RBIs in his first season in each respective league. He slashed .267/.363/.522 with an American League-leading 43 home runs and 113 RBIs. Meanwhile, the Mets struggled at first base, and just as every fan feared, letting Alonso walk ended up being a mistake.
"The truth is in this job I don’t get mulligans,” Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said on Monday. “I also recognize Pete had a tremendous year, and the totality of our production at first base wasn’t good enough, so my job now is to ensure that we’ve got better success across our roster, but for the entirety of the season better production at first base, as well.”
Stearns tried to replace Alonso with Jorge Polanco, who played injjust 37 games. Jared Young was solid at first base in the second half and could be an option there to start next season. However, it will be hard to find any player who can put up the numbers Alonso did for the Mets.
"I give Pete an enormous amount of credit, he went out and had a great year,” Stearns said. “Our entire season our first base production wasn’t nearly good enough, now it’s my job to put a group together that plays better.”
Alonso signed a five-year, $155 million deal with the Orioles, and so far it looks like it was worth every penny. However, the Mets biggest concern with Alonso was not how he would play this year, but it was whether he could maintain strong production for the duration of his contract as he gets older. Right now, letting him walk looks like a massive miscalculation, but if his production falls off a cliff, the perception of letting him go could change.